As Virginia GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin traipses across the nation to endorse a slew of MAGA candidates, back in his home state, elections appear to be a hot mess. Virginia election officials confirmed to the Associated Press on Friday that 31,000 voters in Northern Virginia received mailers listing the wrong polling place, which ended up also impacting another 30,000 voters in the southeastern region of the state.
Officials blamed the error on the printing company, but errors were also made in the addresses as many were sent to incorrect P.O. boxes and residences. Officials said all voters would receive the correct information by Monday.
“It all stemmed back originally to this being a redistricting year, and all of our House and Senate district numbers changed, and everybody had to get a new voter card,” Tazewell County Registrar Brian Earls told the Bluefield Daily Telegraph. “Everyone was issued a new voter notice so the state took on the expense and took it on to mail them out themselves, and so we had the first wave that went out, and they sent it to everyone’s physical address even if you had a P.O. Box. That was the first issue.”
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While there may be some truth to the registrar’s excuses, Democrats in the state say maybe none of this would have happened had Youngkin paid more attention to the upcoming election in Virginia rather than the success of MAGA candidates in other states.
“It is disappointing that the Party now in charge of administering our elections is so woefully incompetent at managing something as simple as a voter information mailer,” Fairfax County Democratic Committee Chair Bryan Graham wrote in a statement, the Post reports. “Instead of gallivanting across the country for election conspiracy theorists, Gov. Youngkin should be in the state he was elected to serve in order to lead his Administration in fulfilling their duties to the people of the Commonwealth.”
Last Tuesday, Youngkin stumped for Republican Oregon gubernatorial candidate Christine Drazan, who has gained momentum in a long-held Democratic state; in Arizona with Kari Lake, a notorious 2020 election denier; and on Wednesday, Youngkin is scheduled to stump in Wisconsin for gubernatorial GOP candidate Tim Michels, who has given money to anti-abortion groups.
When Michels was criticized by his opponent, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, for his donation, Michels responded by saying, “I will never, ever apologize for giving to charitable causes, or for being a Christian … However, the Journal Sentinel should be ashamed of their anti-religious bigotry.”
The errors affected voters in Dumfries, Haymarket, Occoquan, Quantico, Clifton, Herndon, and Vienna, per the Post. And in southwest Virginia, voters were affected in the cities of Bristol and Norton as well as Amherst, Buchanan, Dickenson, Grayson, Lee, Russell, Scott, Tazewell, Washington, and Wise counties.
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